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Crash of the Cashbots
'"Crash of the Cashbots" '''is the second episode of ''Justice and the 20th episode overall. It was published on May 19, 2018. In the episode, the Toon Resistance launches their coordinated strikes on the Cog Headquarters, including the first infiltration of the Cashbot Mints. The Episode Cashbot HQ =The Day of the Attacks= Piggy Pie wanted Hog to be here. She had asked Eileen Irenic if Hog could join the coordinated attacks, but the answer was as Piggy Pie expected: Hog's laff was too low and he had virtually no gag training experience. Certainly not enough to take on the unknown of the Cashbot Bullion Mint. Instead, the team was Tori Dorrance, Horace Calves, Piggy Pie, and a determined Clara Clark. Despite being the most influential and reputable member of the Clark Family and Gag Shop Clerks, Clara had convinced Eileen to let her partake in the attacks themselves. After all, Clara was angry. Furious at the Cogs for taking Herb Clark's toonity. In normal circumstances, this team would include Doctor. But Doctor too was gone. The thought pained Piggy Pie. She even thought about Violet Vance, her former Cog-wrangling partner. But Violet's Cog-fighting days on the larger scale were over. She fought side-battles, maybe on the way home from work, but she ultimately moved from the front lines to the home front. That had also been hard for Piggy; Violet and her had been extremely close friends. But fighting the Cogs had become Piggy Pie's life, and those without similar devotions were harder to retain as friends. Piggy Pie hated the Cogs. They had taken her friend, her town, and too many of the innocent. They had forced the Toons into exile for three years and were undoubtedly planning more horrific actions if they were not stopped. Today was their chance. Cashbot Headquarters was eerily quiet as the Toons emerged from the tunnel carrying flashlights. The lights were dark and the entire area was submerged in a shroud of darkness. Not even a bulb, a candle, or a flashlight shone anywhere. The Cogs were nowhere to be seen. "How are we going to see inside the Mints?" Piggy Pie asked Eileen Irenic, who was surveying the scene with a skeptical expression. "We have redesigned hypno goggles to help us see in the dark," she muttered in reply. "Innovative," Tori Dorrance remarked. "Thank you," Dr. Hyla Sensitive said. Once everyone had conglomerated around the tunnel's exit, Dr. Sensitive distributed goggles to each Toon. Piggy Pie pulled the contraption over her head and fixated them on her nose. To her surprise, it was as if the lights had been switched on. It wasn't the night-vision she had seen on TV, but rather as if there was no blackout. Dr. Sensitive was a wizard. "Can the Cogs see?" Horace Calves asked, crossing his thick arms over his chest. "Probably," Dr. Byte said. "I would imagine that Dr. Molecule outfitted them with eyes that can see in the dark." "Guess we'll find out soon," Eileen said and checked her watch. Instinctively, Piggy Pie did the same. It was a few strokes away from the hour. The attacks had to be synchronized; that had been imperative. A group of thirty-two Toons headed in the direction of the Cashbot Coin Mint, which was reportedly the smallest. Eileen, Constance Miller, Dr. Byte, and Dr. Sensitive began moving down an enormous staircase toward the Cashbot Dollar Mint. Piggy Pie, Horace, Tori, and Clara followed. "Eight groups for the Coin Mint," Constance was saying to Eileen, "two for the Dollar, and one for the Bullion." Eileen turned to look at Piggy. "Once you defeat the Mint Supervisor, regag and return. Dr. Byte will jig the elevator so you go to a different floor. We keep attacking the Mints until sunset." Piggy nodded gravely. "It goes without saying," Constance said, "that if anyone sees the Togs, that we sound the alarm. It's unlikely the Chairman would be here, but it's worth noting." Piggy Pie nodded. They had reached the elevator of the Dollar Mint. The first group of four boarded. Eileen gave Piggy Pie a reassuring smile, but Piggy Pie could see the resolve in her eyes. This was the most critical mission since the attack on the Cog building in Loopy Lane. The attack that took Flippy's life. "Come on," Tori said with a tug on Piggy's sleeve. The four traversed the chasms of the Cog railroad tracks. The tunnels beyond were especially dark, so dark and void that not even the goggles could make out any shapes within. Piggy shuddered and skipped across the tracks. Another tall staircase led up to the entrance to the Bullion Mint. Piggy Pie looked up, expecting to see a towering monolith containing the bullion of the Cogs, whatever bullion was. She assumed it was a form of money. But to Piggy's mild surprise, there was nothing above the elevator. "Where...?" Piggy mused. "It's underground," Horace said. He peered over the edge of the ledge as if the pits of the Mint could be seen. But only the tracks were below. "It's a vault. The Cogs have to keep their money secure." "From whom?" Clara said with a snort. "Us? Their money has no value to us." "It's almost time," Tori said, checking her watch. She was the first to step into the elevator. Piggy Pie stood beside her, and Horace and Clara stood in front. As usual, there were no buttons. The doors just automatically shut. Piggy Pie had to remind herself that they were embraced by darkness, but everything was beautifully lit by the goggles. Piggy Pie stole herself to remove them for a second and was greeted again by nothing but black. She quickly replaced the goggles on her face. The elevator descended rapidly. Piggy Pie's stomach flipped as the elevator plunged. She looked around for something to hold onto, but there was nothing but smooth steel walls. She grabbed her stomach, as if squeezing her abdomen would eliminate the feeling of gravity. But just as it got unbearable, the elevator slowed. "Level 29," an intercom voice said flatly. The doors split open. Piggy Pie recoiled, realizing in that instant that anything could be on the other side of the door and they were 29 levels beneath the surface of one of the darkest places on Earth. Trapped. But there was nothing but a landing leading into a hallway. The walls were an ugly, gnarled mahogany. The floors were linoleum. Above the entrance to the hallway were the letters "LEVEL 29" neatly printed. Piggy Pie followed Clara, Horace, and Tori out of the elevator. They proceeded with caution. The tunnel winded around a few times, and Piggy Pie wondered what was the efficiency of designing the place so confusingly. It hardly seemed practical. Finally, the hallway ended. A fat white shelf spanned the length of an enormous chamber, the shelves piled high to the ceiling. Piggy Pie saw through the cracks in the shelf that many more were lined neatly, going deep inside the room. As Piggy Pie craned her neck to look toward the ceiling, she saw what was lying on each shelf. And gasped. It was gold. Thousands and thousands of enormous bars of gold. The symbol of the Cogs was implanted on each. "Bullion," Tori whispered, "is gold." Horace cocked his head. "It doesn't look right, not what gold usually looks like." "There's no light reflecting off it," Clara said. "It's the goggles." "Right," Horace mumbled. Piggy Pie was still agape. Gold was not exactly common in Toontown. The gem was once the most valuable and most sought after luxury in the Kingdoms. The more gold, the more wealthy, and the stronger the claim to power. The Vulpus foxes were aided in their bloodthirsty quest for power by their tantalizing amount of gold deposits buried deep in the cliffs that divided the north of the continent from the south. When the Toons came to Toontown, they declared gold to be trivial and unimportant. The currency was changed to jellybeans and gold became obsolete. There were known gold deposits in the mountains surrounding Dreamland and the Brrrgh, but no one cared about them. Evidently the Cogs did. "Make note of this," Piggy Pie said to Tori, who was the designated scribe of the group. She was mapping Level 29 of the Mint and was to make notes of any notably occurrences. This was one of them. The Cogs were using the gold for currency, which could mean Dr. Molecule was influenced by the old traditions of the Kingdoms. The thought made Piggy Pie cringe. "This way," Horace said, gesturing to the end of the shelf, where there was an opening. They hastened toward it and rounded the corner. Four Loan Sharks loomed over them. Piggy Pie held her ground. Tori stepped forward and engaged the Cogs in battle. The Dollar Mint Eileen gasped for breath when they finally reached the end of the twisting hallway. But the break was short-lived. She had to gasp when she saw what was before her. A long, narrow, seemingly endless tunnel lined with shelves bearing white Cogbucks. The floor too was made of money. It was as if they ran out of room in the vault and it was spilling over into the halls. "Level 5 is full..." Dr. Sensitive quipped as she made note. Eileen hoisted herself onto the stacks of money and began moving slowly across the passage. She began to feel helpless, as the end was no where in sight. "Let me scan," Dr. Byte said and aimed a pistol-looking device down the tunnel. It beeped once after a few seconds and Dr. Sensitive clustered around him to see what the readings were. "It's an illusion," Dr. Byte said, "from our goggles. The tunnel ends in a few hundred feet." Eileen skeptically continued, one paw at a time. But sure enough, the tunnel's end swam into view. She froze. Four Skelecogs were gazing back at her. Their arms were resting idly at their sides. Their gears were turning across their faces. The sight was frightening, and Eileen didn't like that the lights were out. "We don't even get finished Cogs," Constance said. "The Cashbots are slacking. Not ones for rolling out the welcome wagon I see." She jumped down from the money hall and charged at the Cogs. Kilo, Hyla, and Eileen hurriedly followed. "Check, please," the Skelecog remarked when Constance engaged him in battle. Cashbot Vault Mata Hairy was used to the dark. She had lived without electricity for several years while residing in the darkest neighborhood in Toontown. Her tenure in Dreamland had given her acute vision, which helped her now as she navigated the complex hallway system of the inner Cashbot sanctum. The Cashbot Vault was locked to Toons, and only Cogs could gain access to the elevator leading upward into the beast. But similar to the Vice President's Sellbot Towers, the Toons were quickly crafting Cashbot suits which would give the Toons access to the Cashbot dominion. And the Chief Financial Officer. Mata had adopted the name RB6282, indicating her Robber Baron status. She was usually a short Toon and thus enjoyed the elevated height afforded by the Robber Baron's suit. It slowed her down, for sure, but she had grown used to it when practicing her infiltration. Now that she had the permission of Eileen Irenic and the Toon government, she could not wait to crack the vault wide open. The Cashbots were the economic center of Cog Nation and without it, the Cogs would surely fall. Perhaps one of the most hilarious things Mata had seen since arriving was that the Cogs just stood around. The internal system by which the Cogs sent messages had been switched off by the blackout, and thus no one could get orders. So the Cogs just stood motionless in the halls. Most fled to the holding barracks beyond headquarters, but even then no one spoke to each other. Some Cogs moved, but they kept bumping into things. They couldn't see that well. Mata sniggered as she watched a Short Change slam face-first into a wall and continued onward, humming a tune to herself. She was getting used to her new home. The Bullion Mint The Mint was difficult. The Cogs were putting up a hell of a fight. Piggy Pie was surprised by how many high-level Cogs were here. The Factory was mostly lowly Cold Callers and Telemarketers relegated to one of the worse positions in the Cog hierarchy. But this was like fighting the VP. Every room uncovered another lair of the Cogs. Bullion--the fat gold bars--was everywhere. It towered to the ceiling, it lay idly on the floor. It was on shelves, behind glass, in vaults. It was eerie. It was as if the Cogs wanted to keep the bullion under lock and key but once inside the vault it was lax security. Similar to the Factory, the Cogs had stockpiles of gags lying around which the Toons used to replenish their supplies. It was evident that whenever Toons went sad, the Cogs took their gags and just dumped them in their facilities maybe in some attempt to study them? Or just to take them knowing that without them, the Toons could deal no damage. Piggy Pie was grateful again for Dr. Byte's Etiquette Algorithm, which made the Cogs incapable of understanding the Gags as well as forcing them to do battle in a predetermined format, in which the Toons always went first. The strangest part of the Mint was that it seemed the Cogs had constructed the layout to be a winding maze. The Mint was a labyrinth, with dead ends and confusing roundabouts. At one point, the Toons ended up right back where they started at the beginning of the Mint. Twice. Tori's map became more and more confusing. "We've been here," Horace said calmly when they reentered a room with rusted gears stacked on top of one another, spinning slowly. Tori exasperatedly erased the map she had been drawing. "This is a labyrinth." "That's the point," Horace said. He crossed his arms. "But I don't really understand that. Don't the Cogs treat us like we don't exist? Are they trying to keep us out?" Clara shook her head. "No one will ever understand the madness of Dr. Molecule. It's no use trying to reason him out." "She's right," Piggy Pie said, but her mind had begun wandering to Doctor. She felt the usual compression on her chest from being in a Cog headquarters for an extended period of time. It wasn't like the soul-crushing pressure of being inside Sellbot Towers without a Cog suit, but it was still awful. Being so far underground, so far from the surface, from freedom, from the luxury of a blue sky and open air. "Shall we try that hallway?" Horace said, pointing in a direction that looked moderately untouched. Tori checked her map. "Why not?" They set off down the corridor, expecting to emerge in another chamber that they've seen six times over, but to their joyful surprise, they came upon a set of Cogs blocking the entrance to a wide door. The door was made of sleek metal and was bolted with an enormous lock with weird grooves. The vault of the Mint. One of the Cogs was a wiry Skelecog that was forebodingly taller than the other three, who were all regular Robber Barons. Horace whistled. "The Mint Supervisor..." Tori stepped forward and engaged the Cogs in battle. "You'll never get into this vault," the Skelecog said menacingly. Piggy Pie, Horace, and Clara swarmed into position. "Trap, Piggy?" "Sure," Piggy Pie said and laid down a railroad track. It was by far her favorite gag. Clara lured using a presentation. Despite the Supervisor's confidence, all four Cogs were eliminated in one move. When the Skelecog exploded, a key fell out of the debris. Or well, it looked like a key. It was a fat cylinder with a series of indents on the edge that seemed to match the padlock's symbols. Horace stooped and lifted it, grunting with the weight of it. He stuck it in the lock and turned. "I swear," he muttered in his gruff voice, "if there's only Cogbucks in here, I'm going to go on a rampage." But when he turned the lock and swung the huge door open, everyone doubled back in surprise. There was only a small little crevasse in the wall containing a single file. "What..." Tori said, approaching the hole. Horace slid out the file and flipped it open. "Railroad plans," he said, turning the paper to show the others. Indeed, it was a series of blueprints showing the map of railroads around Cashbot Headquarters. Piggy Pie peered over Horace's shoulder as he flipped through the pages. "No Bossbot Headquarters on these," he said with disappointment. "But maybe Eileen and the others found something?" "Hopefully," Clara said. She crossed her arms and looked around. "It's ghostly in here when you know there's no Cogs. Can we go?" "I suppose," Horace said, adjusting his goggles which helped them see in the dark. "I'll hold the plans." The four dropped their transports and left the darkness of the Bullion Mint behind. Only to return to attack another floor. Toon Hall It had been a long day. Eileen, Constance, Dr. Byte, and Dr. Sensitive had also recovered railroad plans, though the ones in the Dollar Mint had interestingly been more extensive than the ones recovered from the Bullion Mint. But despite the plans, which unveiled a much more widespread railroad than anyone could have anticipated, there was no sign of Bossbot Headquarters being on the line. Granted, the plans only showed the area around the old Speedway and Dreamland. Some of the tracks seemed to turn north, but stopped. A few Xs marked failed terminals. It was evident the Cogs were once trying to expand north. Eileen remembered that Alice Carver and Bradley Wolfe had mentioned that Dr. Molecule had once tried to reestablish contact with the Kingdoms. Perhaps the Cogs had been trying to build a railroad north, though Eileen was confident that plan would fail. The Diary of War depicted a harsh and cruel landscape that separated Toontown from the Kingdoms. The 600-mile trek would be impractical by railroad. By foot was the only option, and no King or Queen was audacious enough to make the journey south. Constance was sitting across from Eileen's desk, reading through all the reports from the various Toon Resistance fighters from the day, as well as poring over the photographs Ahab Ishmael had sent from his scuba team--tunnels were indeed discovered in the Bay. The Resistance had successfully shut down the Factory, emptied Sellbot Towers, stormed the entirety of the Coin Mint, half the Dollar Mint, and one floor of the Bullion Mint. Lawbot Headquarters was breached but not to the extent of the other two. There were no Cog buildings left in Toontown. In fact, for the rest of the day, there hadn't been a Cog seen on the streets at all. The Toon Resistance had been successful in beating the Cogs back to their barracks and acquiring as much intelligence as possible, but Eileen could hardly count the day as a total victory. The Cogs were not dead. They were in hiding. They would probably stay in hiding until they had the power and resources to not only return, but come back with a vengeance. They were still led by the wicked Chairman, who had four Togs in his possession, and 27 Togs were still locked up below Toontown Central. And nothing recovered today had been critical enough to undo the Togs' wiring. Eileen sighed as she thought over how complicated the situation had become. Even if the Cogs had been completely eradicated, there was still the enormous three (maybe four) Headquarters that would take years to dismantle. The darkness would forever loom on the edge of Toontown. What would a Toontown after the Cogs look like? What were they approaching? What was it truly they were fighting for? What was going to happen next? Eileen rubbed her head and tried not to think too much about it. The attacks had been a success, albeit only on the surface. They still had to save 31 Togs and find Bossbot Headquarters. It had been nearly a year since the return from Exodus, and Eileen could not help but shake the feeling that they were indeed at war with the Cogs. Production Continuity and Story Arcs The coordinated strikes on Sellbot and Cashbot Headquarters occurred in this episode. The Coin, Dollar, and Bullion Mints are stormed for the first time. The attacks leave Sellbot Headquarters virtually destroyed and Cashbot Headquarters incapacitated. Mata Hairy begins her infiltration of Cashbot Headquarters The activities of those on the home front are depicted in "Out in the Darkness." Trivia *This episode takes place simultaneously with the third episode, "Out in the Darkness." The order of the episodes was originally flipped, with this one occurring third in the season. Producers flipped it ultimately to make more sense. *Producers originally forgot that Doctor was a Tog and included him in the lineup for the Bullion Mint. Without a suitable replacement and not wanting to develop a new character, Clara Clark was chosen to fill in. Category:Episodes Category:Justice Episodes Category:Plight of the Cogs Episode Series